This week...

Has been pretty rough. I recently gave up smoking, so it has been kind of rough. The good part is that it pretty much gives me twice as much money than I had before, so now I actually get to buy stuff. Anyway turkey day tomorrow, the parents want me to get up early and peel potatoes...we'll see if that happens. =p

Next week I would like to write more about random bad decks, maybe a competitive piece on Gravekeepers after the YCS, and some overlooked tech cards.

~E.P.B.

Tales from a Sneak Preview probably not near you

Recently I attended the sneak preview for Starstrike Blast, and it was pretty entertaining. One of the cool things that I like about the sneak previews is the number of players who don’t regularly go to tournaments.

This time around it was a bit odd to not really know anyone at my local for the first time in years. My local does things strictly by how Konami wants it done. For the most part the name of the game is getting 5 packs, opening them, building 20-card decks, playing and trading. What usually ends up happening is players play a few matches and then just stick to trading.

What I like about the non-usuals is that they actually play the matches, and enjoy the event rather than using it as a buffer for their collections. I won’t say though that I don’t try and get good deals at sneaks because that is just part of the game, but I do not try and rip people off. One of the problems with this sneak preview was the lack of good cards pulled, just in general.

The overall event was fun. One of the cool things was playing the matches, it’s just not something that happens too often anymore, unless you find a store running an old school sneak preview tournament. One of the fun things about deck building in this format is using card combos to overcome big monster. I played a few games where my Power Giant got ran over due to some cards my opponent set-up.

I’ve never had a problem with deck-building this time around. Even if you pull a bunch of archetype specific cards with very few related monster, the cards are still usable due to the 20 card format. There are some disadvantages though as players with good pulls (and in tournament’s players who cheat) can make the format hard.

Although we weren’t required to play, I definitely had some all-stars in my 20-card deck.



It’s sad that most of these cards wont see the light of day outside of the random fun time at the sneak preview, but I guess that’s how the game works. Maybe at some point I’ll make a casual deck based on what I felt were the key cards that I used, but for competitive play and even at locals, I can’t see myself using most of the stuff.

Anyway I feel like I’m killing the mood with all of that kind of talk.

Until next time, don’t cramp my style.

~E.P.B.

Lightning Warrior and my big stupid Timmy.

I consider myself first and foremost a casual player at this game (although that doesn’t mean I don’t keep up my knowledge over the metagame, and competitive strategy) and every once in a while a card just gets me giddy. This week that card is a new hard to get promo called Lightning Warrior.

Lightning Warrior
LIGHT/ Warrior – Synchro – Effect/ 7/ 2400/ 1200
1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner monsters
When this card destroys an opponent's monster by battle and sends it to the Graveyard, inflict 300 damage to your opponent for each card in your opponent's hand.

Now, this card isn’t too great competitive wise, and there is little reason to use this over the other level 7 synchros that are available to us now. With that being said I would just like to point out that the art is badass.




Now that my fangasm is out of the way. I like this card for other reasons than it just being useful, but lets still dissect it’s effect just to have that done.

For starters, it’s a level 7 synchro, which is all right and fairly easy to get out. The 2400 attack is a bit low, just tying with Blackrose Dragon for the second highest attack in the level 7 generic synchros (not including Dark Strike Fighter). Other than that there isn’t much else to talk about in terms of its level.

The attribute is light, which means it combos with Honest. That gives this card a little bit more survivability and allows it to activate its effect easier. The effect really isn’t that great, providing a small amount of burn damage. Since the format isn’t really central on hand advantage since Storm is gone, the card’s effect will only be doing minimal damage. On average I would say 900 is the magic number, which isn’t enough to make the card warranted use over BRD or Scrap Archfiend. Although all of this is true, the card is yet another generic level 7 synchro which is something this game is short on.

The last bit of info has to do with this cards lore in the anime and manga. The card appears to be Yusei’s ace monster in the manga, seemingly being the manga version of Junk Warrior. This is cool I guess, if you are a fan of Yusei.

Personally, I just like this card because he is a Lightning Warrior, pretty silly to think something is cool because of a name and picture, but that’s what the big stupid timmy part in the title is referring too. It’s not a terrible card, but that’s only due to a lack of good level 7 synchros, all in all, when I get my one copy for collecting purposes it will probably see play in at least one my extra decks, because it’s just a cool card.

Until next time, keep rockin them beats...

~E.P.B.

Glow-up Bulb, l33t level 1 Tuna.

To most people who look at Glow-up Bulb, it may just seem like a Plaguespreader Zombie clone, or better yet a Spore clone, but that card does something that neither card can offer.

Glow-Up Bulb
Earth/ Plant-Tuner/1/100/100
You can send the top card of your deck to the graveyard to special summon this card from the grave-yard. Each player may only use the effect of “Glow-Up Bulb” once per duel.

For starters Glow-up Bulb is a level one tuner, which lets you search it out with One-for-One. This makes it a fairly searchable tuner, and pretty easy to get on the field. The fact that Glow-up is a level one synchro may limit what you can do with it though when it is special summoned.

One of the important things to pay attention to is what your commitment is to the field and whether or not activating Glow-Up is right for the situation you are in. Since you can only use it once, it’s important not to waste it.

The other pro of Glow-Up being level 1 is that it makes it one of the go to tuners for the new synchron monster Formula Synchron. I’m certain we all know how good Formula Synchron is, since it provides two great advantages but is difficult to summon. Glow-up will probably be replacing Spore (or played alongside it) in Quickdraw decks because of this, since tuning into the Synchron becomes really easy with a Dandylion token.

That’s probably what interests me about Glow-up the most, is the fact that it can get a lot of use with Formula Synchron, which makes it well worth the price that it is right now. In terms of the price of the card I can see it dropping for a short amount of time after Starkstrike Blast, jumping if it’s played in a jump, and then hovering around there.

It is definitely one of the most worthwhile card out of the set.

In terms of how it is played there really isn’t much left to mention with the card, as the effect is fairly obvious. What I want to talk about now is the design of the card itself. The card is the first graveyard tuner that doesn’t require a cost to special summon it. PGZ takes a card out of hand, Spore takes another plant, Bulb just requires you to have cards left in your deck.

This makes it one of the best tuners to get multiple uses from, the only downsides to special summoning this card aren’t really downsides at all. I consider this a leap in terms of design because the card is powerful but is not broken, and is evolving on the previous aspects of cards that we have seen while not making them obsolete.

My personal feelings on little Bulby, besides restating what most of you already know, is that the card has a very high potential to be nuts. I've even heard of a Debris-Hime deck piloted by Jeff Jones using around Shooting Star, which will be interesting to see if those rumors were true (I've tried looking up tournaments/reports/decklists for this but haven't had much luck, but I'm usually oblivious to the obvious). It will be interesting to see how that deck does.

I;m pretty excited to get my copies. If anyone has any let me know.

BACK FROM T3H DEAD

And I feel beastly j0. Anyway, I figured I'd make this much less focused on gaming but still focused on gaming...man I can't decide.

Anyway, my college classes have been hella hard, hence not seeing an update. Since attending nationals I haven't really been able to upload the videos since there's not really any game-play as much as me and goofing off about ordering $100 worth of pizza. They didnt want me to post them, but since no one appears to read this I just might. Especially since our stupidity is hilarious (as well as Jake coming out of a closet while yelling 'I'm coming out of the clossssseeeeetttt' while he flailed like a penquin.)


Anyway look for my next post. Where I talk about making card game sexy time with Glow Up Bulb, and maybe some talk about MTG if I feel like it.

~E.P.B.

LoL Play it nao

I've disappeared because League of Legends is sucking my time. The game is completely free to play, so you should check it out.

http://www.leagueoflegends.com/

The game plays a lot like DotA and is comparable to the WoW Battlegrounds.

Find me on it, my screen name is Et3rnal13.

~E.P.B.

Locals and Such

Yesterday was local day, ended up getting 5th with Batteryman. Got my first glimpse at how well Infernities work. The deck is pretty legit.

I've also started playing the video game Demon Souls for anybody who is interested in that sort of thing. My character is a knight, and is currently dead...-.-; It's hard sometimes, since players can leave hints it's hard to figure out what is a good hint/tip and what you shouldn't worry about.

For exampole throughout one of the levels in the game there were hints dropped warning of ambushes with a lot of bloodstains by them. Well the "ambush" turns out to be 1 or 2 guys, with the other players just being horrible. Then I came across the same thing warniong of a tough enemy and thought "it can't be that bad" and then just getting destroyed. Bleh x.x